Heart of Hearts
by Anera527
Summary: Post-S2. Alec Hardy shows up in Broadchurch again months after Joe Miller's trial following his oldest secret catching up to him. Paul is the one to help him back on his feet, but when the vicar's own demons come back to haunt him both men will have to learn to face their respective pasts head-on or be killed beneath their weight.
1. Chapter 1

" _ **Heart of Hearts"**_

" _There are people who take the heart out of you, and there are those who put it back."_

 _-_ Elizabeth David

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Alec Hardy didn't like heights. The vertigo of looking down and realizing just how far down the ground really was made him dizzy and slightly sick to his stomach. As a child he had always kept his feet planted firmly on the ground after a bad experience climbing tree in Glasgow (one of the few things from his childhood he could clearly remember), and forever afterwards he made sure to never be so out control of his surroundings again. The heights had never helped his heart, either, causing it to jump more often than not.

He didn't need to worry so much about his heart now, though, thanks to the pacemaker surgery. The other day not included, he hadn't had an episode since the surgery itself. For that he was thankful, even if the feel of the small piece of metal he could feel beneath his skin still freaked him out a little.

The cliffs didn't faze him tonight, either.

He wasn't quite where Danny had been all those months ago, the night when Joe had killed a defenseless innocent boy. The hut was barely in the distance, a grey block standing just within sight.

He could hear the ocean far below, crashing along the shoreline. Miller had remarked once that the sound was peaceful to her, a symphony of sound that told her at least one thing would never change. He himself was not one to normally care one way or the other or even notice such things, but ever since he had heard her remark he had listened to the sound himself and to him it sounded mournful. Almost frightening. Water was unknowable. Mysterious. It dragged you under and drowned you, and the ocean here had claimed so much already.

He stepped closer to the edge. So far down.

He wondered vaguely if all those years ago when his mother had been here she had visited these cliff tops herself. The beach he had claimed for his own, that he could recall, but his father in a particularly vindictive moment had labelled Elaine Hardy as 'suicidal'. Sick in the head.

A trait, Lucas had ranted, she had passed on to her son.

That, again, Alec could recall clearly, and in light of what had just recently happened he felt a twist deep in his gut. ' _Her_ ' son, his father had stated. Not 'their'. Alec was rarely 'their' son.

He would never be 'their' son again. Labelled to the last as a mistake, he would remain Elaine's son only for the rest of his life.

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The call came roughly four months after he had settled into a small but comfortable flat in the town of Bywater. It was near enough to Sandbrook that Daisy could easily come and see him but it was far enough away at the same time that he wasn't uncomfortable being so close to the town of so much heartbreak. Tess, anyway, had expressly stated that she and Dave would not welcome him in their home other than the odd visit for Daisy, and Alec was all-too-willing to oblige his ex-wife.

He had fallen asleep on the couch after glancing through some paperwork one rainy afternoon and was abruptly woken by the buzzing of his phone, startling him enough that for a moment he was afraid he'd woken up too quickly and he'd have an episode. The pacemaker kept his fear at bay, however, and he was able to grab his phone. He didn't bother looking at the call ID before answering.

"What?"

The resulting answer nearly made him drop the blasted piece of technology on the floor.

Lucas Hardy was dying; he had been finishing some carpentry on his porch and had fallen and broken his back. Badly. He had a week at best to live.

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"Hardy!"

The familiar shout should have startled him enough to make him back away from the edge of the cliffs, but he was too numb to respond now. The rain that had fallen earlier had thoroughly chilled him and the rational part of his brain was telling him that he wasn't stable in the slightest now, approaching delirium from cold and exhaustion. He hadn't slept for five days.

Her voice was sharp but he expected nothing less, welcoming the familiar tone instead. "Should've known you'd follow me, Miller."

She sure as hell had followed him. Ellie Miller had not heard from her former boss since he had left Broadchurch following the close of the Sandbrook case, but she'd woken on the couch with the oddest sense deep in her stomach; she remembered Beth's description from the day Danny's body had been found on the beach, of her friend's saying that she had _known_ what she'd find there. It was a deep, unexplainable dread that sat heavy in her chest. _Get to the cliffs. Now_. So she'd gone without conscious thought, and for just a moment as she had reached the beginning of the footpath up she'd caught a glimpse of a familiar figure mounting the crest.

She felt her heart clench. God, he looked a mess. Just a few months ago he had left her with rumpled clothes and a thick beard and hair that hung into his eyes. Now the beard was similar to the stubble he had had when she first met him, and his clothes hung off him in a way that suggested severe weight loss in a very short period of time.

And he was standing _far_ too close to the edge. He, a man who had stated the cliffs were a death trap, seemed to taunting it now.

Ellie swallowed down her fear and her anger, fighting back the urge to yell at him. Name-calling and fury wouldn't help anything. Not until she understood his frame of mind.

"What's happened, Hardy? Why are you here?"

He was still turned away from her but she still managed to catch the curve of a smile. A shiver of fear rolled down her spine. He looked up at the sky, windswept and bedraggled. "I'm a bastard, Miller."

Of all the things to say, that certainly had not been something she'd expected to hear. She took a step closer. "And you've come all the Broadchurch to tell me _that_? Really?"

Abruptly he turned to look her in the face, and Ellie felt her breath catch with dismay. If his body was taxed and underweight his face was even more so; stress and exhaustion had smudged his eyes a deep grey, new lines gouged in his face that aged him even more than he had looked before. His eyes were bright with tears and the onset of fever. He looked, she realized, like he was insane. And she realized, too, just how dangerous he was to himself right now.

Why he was standing so close to that edge.

A humorless smile twisted his mouth as he looked at her. "How ironic would it be if I made this a suicide spot, Miller?"

Her stomach disappeared. She straightened where she stood, suddenly formidable DS Miller again. She heard the blood pounding in her ears. "Don't you dare," she hissed, jaw clenched so hard she was afraid she'd break her teeth. "Don't you _fucking_ dare, Hardy."

He had lost interest in her, turning back to the cliffs. The ocean spread out like a blanket before them. "My mum had tried to kill herself before. Couple of times. Dad always said I'd end up like her."

Her anger wasn't going to get through to him. Oh God, she thought frantically, thinking fast, oh God, don't let him move. Don't let him jump. Fear was threatening to choke her voice but she fought to keep it steady. "Hardy, step away from the edge. You've come here to talk to me, right? Just- just step away from the cliff and we can talk."

Her desperation somehow worked its way through to his attention. Almost out of habit he took a single step backwards. He was trembling. "Jack Marshall drowned himself, you know." She flinched at the reminder of that horrible morning, discovering the old man's body washed up on Broadchurch's shore like flotsam from a storm. "How can you drown yourself? How can anyone just let that happen? It hurts, Miller. You can't breathe and it _hurts_."

He was in pieces. Shattered. She had thought that she had seen him at his worst before, during Danny's case. Remembering Pippa and Lisa. But this—this was total unraveling. Ellie didn't understand what it could have been that would have affected him this way. This was bewilderment and hurt and anger. "I know. I know, but you don't have to worry about that now. Just come here, just take my hand."

He shifted back to her, gaze falling on her uplifted hand. Tears glistened on his face, and she felt her own tears surge up seeing the undisguised anguish on his face. "Help me."

She had never been able to not help him. "Take my hand, Alec. Step away from the edge." He still hesitated. She took another step closer, holding her hand up higher. " _Please_."

And after a long, anguishing moment, he did.

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A/N: I hope I didn't scare too many readers off with this first chapter. Sorry. Alec really isn't in a stable place right now, but the next few chapters will give more backstory as to why. Paul will be 'round next chapter, so see you all then!


	2. Chapter 2

" _ **Chapter 2"**_

" _Daddy doesn't mean those things he says, you know." Quietly, Elaine Hardy looked at her son, who sat with a frown as he reluctantly listened to his mother's words. His hands were fiddling with his latest book, a gift for his eleventh birthday. "Alec? He loves you. Your daddy loves you a lot."_

" _Why does he say those things, then?" With all of the cold logic of a child he looked back at her. Already she could see flashes of Lucas in his dark eyes, saw the challenging tilt to his chin. It amazed Elaine at times that her husband could even attempt to say that Alec wasn't his blood, they were already so much alike._

 _Much to Elaine's frustration, sometimes._

" _Well—Daddy has a temper, and you know that sometimes anger makes people do things they normally wouldn't do."_

" _Having a temper shouldn't allow you to beat up someone else." His voice was adamant, so sure in that fact, and Elaine had to fight back a fond smile before he caught sight of it and thought she was laughing at him. Alec felt a lot of resentment for his father, with good reason, but already she could see that he was determined to do something about those in the same position as he was in. Even at the age of eleven he had a lot of passion for what he felt was right._

" _No," Elaine agreed, and it was only in those moments when she remembered Lucas taking his belt to Alec's back that she felt her stomach burn with anger and hatred, "it doesn't, but remember it isn't our place to judge. It will be taken care of in the Lord's time, not ours."_

 _Alec looked even less impressed with that statement than he had with the one previous. She knew all too well his confusion and anger with her God. "But God never does anything about it. I'd be better doing it myself."_

 _Elaine disliked how adult he was. A child shouldn't be reasoning in such a way. As always, however, she tried to put on a positive twist to her reply. "But that's what makes God so brilliant, Alec. He'll use us sometimes to fulfill a part of His plan. God will put you in the right place, even if you don't know it at the time."_

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"Just hold on, Hardy. Hold on, we're almost there… Just a bit more. Hold on…"

Miller's mindless rambling normally would have driven Alec crazy—she always talked too much—but somehow now it was almost comforting. He knew they were heading back towards town but he was too dizzy and confused to make any sense from his surroundings; everything was blurred, surreal. He could barely recall the moment he'd gripped her small, dry hand with his own and now together they struggled to make it back to her home. Miller had grabbed hold of him surprisingly tightly, draping one arm over her shoulders and her opposite arm looped around his waist.

He would be mortified about that later.

Right now he could in a way draw strength from her own steadfastness, but he was flagging. He just wanted to sleep, to slip into oblivion and not have to deal with what had thrown his life to hell again.

Dimly he could hear Miller still rambling, loud even over the pounding in his ears, shouting for his attention as he suddenly stumbled. He wanted to look up, to assure her that that he was okay, really, but his legs felt like they were going to collapse and the vertigo behind his eyes made him want to throw up. The vertigo of those cliffs or of the waters of Sandbrook never left him.

Then suddenly Miller skidded to a stop, almost letting go of him—only to be joined a moment later by a second later by a second pair of hands. Larger, stronger hands. A man's. For a moment he flashed back to Lee Ashworth, slamming him to the floor in Claire's cottage; then to his own father, his rough fingers bruising the flesh of Alec's forearm as the man prepared to beat his struggling son with his belt—

He balked, and heard Miller exclaim in frustration and worry.

"What's happened to him, Ellie?" A strong, British accent. Familiar. He just couldn't place how at the moment.

"I don't know." Miller sounded close to tears. "I just—he was making his way up the cliffs and when I reached him he was s-standing on the edge—" She cut off abruptly with an odd choking sound.

Those hands tightened for just a moment before their grip slackened again. "Here. In here."

Their surroundings were suddenly brighter, the shuffling of their feet louder and echoing in some strange way, and for a moment he wondered where they were before he felt Miller's arm leave his waist and her hands guided him down to sit on a hard wooden bench. His vision blurred and brightened from such an abrupt shift; it seemed so much like one his heart issues that he sat forward with closed eyes and head bent above his knees while he waited for the dizziness to pass.

Finally the high insistent ringing in his ears started to fade and his vision began to clear, and he suddenly realized that the floor beneath his feet was stone and the bench he was sitting on was a pew.

 _Shit._

Miller was standing in front of him, that bloody orange parka bright enough to hurt the eyes, and her face was drawn and pale. Paul Coates, just as windswept as she was, was standing directly behind her with concern high on his brow. Neither of them had changed much since the last time he had left Broadchurch—Miller's hair was just a bit longer but that was it.

And being typical Miller, her concern exploded into anger the moment she realized he was aware enough to listen.

"What," she growled between tightly clenched teeth, "the fuck gave you the idea to pull such a stupid stunt like that for?" Fury was pounding in her eyes—she looked ready to set into him as she had her husband after Joe confessed to killing Danny Latimer.

"Ellie," Paul said quietly, his eyes not leaving Alec. There was just a hint of warning in his tone that told her to back away.

For some reason she listened to that warning, and took a deep breath before trying to continue. "If you had forced to watch that, I really would've thrown that cup of piss on your grave." Without waiting for a response she turned on her heel and practically ran in the direction of the church's restrooms. A few months ago he would have at least attempted to follow her—he had, after all, dragged her out of the bathroom stall during Joe's plea—but on some level he recognized that his actions tonight had changed their dynamic.

Paul was quiet until Ellie's footsteps faded. His gaze was entirely too open and concerned for Alec's liking, but he was too exhausted and heartsick to lash out and so for a long moment the two of them looked at each other, trying to remember if they'd still hated each other when they'd last talked.

Alec was too tired to care.

"I won't ask what happened," Paul said quietly. "Not unless you wish to tell me, but I think you should at least go to the hospital for the night—"

"No." Enough with the bloody hospitals already, he'd had to go there so many times for his arrhythmia—he would not bloody well go just because he was tired. 'And self-harming,' a corner of his mind pointed out, but he firmly ignored it.

The concern on the vicar's face mixed with exasperation. "You really are one of the most stubborn people I have ever had the displeasure of meeting."

Alec snorted a laugh, starting to shiver as his overtaxed body tried to recover from what hell he'd put it through. His eyes felt gritty and irritated. Dear god, he'd cried in front of Miller. "Didn't know you cared that much."

He was looking down and didn't catch the softening of the vicar's expression. "I'll go find you a blanket. If you won't go to hospital, you can at least have somewhere to sleep tonight."

His tongue was loose, otherwise he would have never blurted out to Paul what he did. "Go check on Miller. Please. Make sure she's alright."

Paul didn't blink. "Of course."

Five days of no sleeping finally caught up with Alec. Finally since leaving his father's old house and leaving Scotland he could finally stop, he could rest. He didn't even realize when he started drifting off, didn't know how long he'd been sitting in the warm sanctuary by himself, until he felt small, gentle hands grip his jacket and help him slide it off. He started awake enough to realize that it was Miller, back from the bathrooms.

"'M sorry," he managed to make his mouth say, but he was already dropping off again.

Her hands were soft as she stroked his hair back. A mother's touch. "Wanker," she whispered, but her voice was soft as she said it.

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Paul did just as Hardy had asked and went to see that Ellie was okay. She was huddled in the farthest stall wiping her eyes when he knocked, but her voice was steady enough when she answered. She initially thought that he was Hardy, and it made him wonder what it was that had happened between the two former detectives that she would suppose that.

Perhaps, he thought wryly, it was for the same reason that Hardy had asked him to check on Ellie in the first place.

"Thank you, Paul," Ellie sniffed, taking the tissue that the vicar was offering. She splashed some water on her face and blew her nose, and to Paul it seemed that she was doing a bit better. Her eyes were calmer, at least. When she turned back to him, she wasn't so rattled. "Has he run off again, then? Scared of the bid bad vicar?"

"He was falling asleep on the pew when I left him. I really don't know how anyone can sleep on those, though several Sunday morning guests are able to do just that."

Ellie managed a small smile at his dry joke, but her thoughts were on Hardy. "Bloody wanker," she whispered, finishing wiping her face with a paper towel. Paul excused her language, understanding how easy it was to be riled by the ridiculous Scot sleeping in the sanctuary.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Paul asked gently. She was going to have a rough night ahead of her after what she had nearly witnessed.

But Ellie shook her head, swallowing hard. "No. Thank you, Paul, but no. I've got to go home and make sure Tom and Fred are alright." She offered him another shaky smile and left the bathroom. Paul stood in silence for a moment, contemplating, before he shook himself and went in search of a blanket.

When he made his way back to the sanctuary he found Ellie standing beside the pew where Hardy was, laying the former detective's jacket over the pew behind her. She turned when hearing Paul's footsteps. "I'll be back in the morning to make sure he hasn't run off."

As she left, Paul wondered again. What was it, exactly, between Hardy and Ellie? He had not been mistaken—there was something fond each of their mentioning of the other, something familiar that had not been there during Danny's case. Of friendship, perhaps. Of trust.

Hardy, when he was close enough to see, was stretched out on the pew deeply asleep already. His clothes and hair were still damp from the rain earlier, and like Ellie had earlier he could see just from the physical repercussions that something bad had happened to the former detective.

Paul contemplated. It was the Lord's sense of irony, he supposed, with this situation. Six months ago he had had Joe Miller seek refuge in the sanctuary and sleep very near this same pew. Now Paul had the man who had first arrested Joe in practically the same position.

It was not coincidence.

Unsettled, Paul prayed in his study. There was a deep sense of wariness in his chest, the familiar sense of God warning him of something. Hardy's sudden reappearance was a harbinger—of what he didn't know, but he knew at least enough.

Be prepared, that inner wariness warned.

And that was it.

 _Be prepared._

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A/N: So apparently God likes Disney villain songs. Thank you to all who read the first chapter, and especially those who left reviews. You are all awesome!


	3. Chapter 3

" _ **Chapter 3"**_

A/N: It's kind of amazing that it's been over a month since I've updated this story, but RL came around and give me a boot up the butt and I hadn't really had much time or inspiration for this. But now I'm back on track and I know exactly where everything is going, so enjoy this quick little update. We'll start getting into the action soon.

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It was late the next morning, stiff from sleeping on the hard surface of the pew, when Alec woke up. Sun was filtering through the stainglass window, rich and full of the colors of the glass. For a moment he laid there trying to recollect everything that had happened last night, the memories hazy from his lack of sleep; all he could really remember was the cliffs and Miller's furious face.

His stomach abruptly tightened. What had he said to her last night? What had he _done_? Miller's anger was normal—he expected it, in fact—where he was concerned, but he knew there were lines that shouldn't be crossed and he was gripped by the sudden and irrational fear that he had done just that. He sat up, unable to stay still now with his heart suddenly racing with a very different reason from his old arrhythmia, and his hand fell on the still-cool fabric of his coat hung on the pew behind him.

Miller had helped him take it off last night (or had it been early this morning?) Her hands had been soft and gentle enough then—he could only hope that she wouldn't be so angry at him that she would refuse to see him. Or even talk to him.

She was the only colleague he had here in Broadchurch.

He groaned and ran his hands down his face, hunched over on the pew. "Shit," he breathed, fingers now digging into his hair. Embarrassment flushed his face as he wondered just how much of his messed up psyche he had shown her.

Vulnerability was a liability. Vulnerability allowed bastards like Lucas Hardy to beat on you, it allowed the world to prey on whatever innocence anyone had left. He couldn't afford weakness in his line of work. He couldn't afford it in his life. He straightened in his seat with a sigh, looking up at the ceiling now, the great arching roof spread far above his head, and wondered just how much his life had now changed since that fateful day six days ago.

He bundled up the blanket still spread over the bench and stood, skirting around the edge of the pew in front of him and walking down the aisle. His footsteps echoed too loudly in the open space too much for his liking, and glancing at the cross hung there on the window he felt his skin crawl. He hated churches.

Passionately.

"Are you feeling any better this morning?"

Paul's voice was quiet but clear. Alec rolled his eyes and turned towards the waiting vicar. "Did I scare you that badly?"

"Not me," Paul replied with a shake of his head. "Ellie."

"Then it's not any of your business, is it, Reverend?"

The vicar ignored the warning note in his tone, his tone turning just a bit chiding as if Alec was a child who had done something wrong. "She was crying in the bathroom."

The information was like a physical blow to his stomach, the guilt he was so trying to ignore rushing forward with surprising force. _Bastard_. His lip curled in a hint of a snarl as he glared at Paul, truly hating the vicar in that moment. "Maybe you should stay there on your pulpit, Coates," he snapped, "because if you think you can be a mediator you're a shit one." He threw the blanket on the pew nearest the vicar, then turned on his heel to see himself out. "Thanks for the blanket, anyway."

"Your welcome."

The polite response raised his hackles even more. He turned back. "What happened between Miller and me is no concern of yours. Where were you when the town turned its back on her after her bastard husband was arrested? Did you ever go and check on her?" When Paul remained silent he shook his head. "No, I didn't think so."

"I didn't need to check up on Ellie," Paul replied quietly. He hadn't moved from his spot in his office doorway; his expression hadn't even twitched, much to Alec's annoyance. "I knew she had you, at least." He smirked now, just a bit, when seeing the former detective's reaction. "I'm not blind, Hardy. I saw you the night we lit the beacon for Danny. Whose idea had it been to go and watch it?"

It had been Miller's wish to go, but the way she had mentioned it had been mere wistfulness. She was still hiding away from the town at that point but she had known that there would have been no way she could have joined the crowd on the beach. It had been Alec who had, in his usual way, forced her into going by simply ordering a cab to take them there. She hadn't fought him too much that night, thankfully; her heart hadn't been into it.

"She didn't need me. She should have had her friends."

Paul raised his brow, humored disbelief widening his smile. "I'll just assume you're really not that blind, Hardy."

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Miller was still living in her old house, he was pleased to see. He saw the living room light on through the front window as he mounted the steps to the door. As soon as he knocked he heard a loud clattering and then Miller's voice. "Tom, come make sure the toast doesn't burn!" Then the door was swinging open and she was looking at him still dressed in pajamas and robe and her curls flying everywhere. She didn't seem surprised to see him. "Sir."

He grimaced. "I've already told you, Miller, you don't have to call me that anymore."

"When are you going to stop calling me 'Miller'?" she retorted sardonically, raising an eyebrow. She stepped back. "I take it you've come all the way from the church?" When he nodded she rolled her eyes. "Come on in, then. I swear you do this just to annoy me, showing up on my doorstep. I could arrest you for trespassing."

"You would've done that already if you were going to," he told her as he slipped through. The foyer was clean and tidy, although he spied a pile of scattered shoes piled together. He heard a happy screeching from the kitchen and wryly guessed that Ellie's wee one was wide awake already as Tom's deepening timbre answered his excitable younger brother.

She was looking him up and down as she closed the door. "Did you—sleep well, then?" she asked awkwardly, clearly thinking about the night before.

God, he'd almost forgotten how much they danced around each other. "'Bout as good as can be."

The Miller household had just been starting their breakfast, with Tom buttering toast and Fred playing with his spoon, and he tried to turn down Miller's offer of something to eat but there was a stubborn, almost angry, light in his eyes that told him to shut up. "You need to eat, Hardy," she told him shortly. "You've always been too skinny but now you look like a walking skeleton." She eyed him critically again. "How much have you lost?"

He honestly had no idea. He hadn't thought to find out since arriving in Scotland and he certainly had not had maintaining his weight at all on the mind since he'd entered his childhood home.

Miller's expression darkened when she received silence as her answer. "Okay then," she said, "how long has it been since you've had any _sleep_?"

That stumped even more than her asking him about his weight. "Erm—what day is it?"

Her eyes turned frigid with disbelief. "Saturday." She was calling him a dumbass with all but her words.

Oh. "Friday before last."

"Eight days ago." Her voice was tight. "Eat your food. If you complain I'll force it down your throat anyway."

He hadn't realized how hungry he really was until she made him eat. He stood near the sink, watching Miller feed Fred. Tom snuck quick, guarded looks Alec's way every so often, which made the former detective want to grin a bit. If the lad would continue to be so protective of his family then he had his head on straight. He finished first and made a hasty retreat to the living room, choosing to wait for Miller to make the first move now.

She did right after she let Fred loose from his seat. With a quick efficiency he was taken aback by she stepped up to him and held out a single sheet of paper printed off from the computer. "I think this, Hardy," she told him calmly, "is the answer to my questions."

He took it from her and struggled to keep from showing his reaction, but she had quick eyes: he knew she picked up his slight shudder. Dated last Monday, 2014, it was the obituary for one Lucas Hardy, aged 73, dead of natural causes. He looked back up at her. She must have been able to read the question in his expression because she shrugged and shuffled her feet.

"Last night," she began awkwardly, her own expression pinched with the memory, "when you were… standing by the cliffs you told me, 'I'm a bastard.'" He felt his face flush at her words; she very carefully kept from looking back up at him. "And at first I was just thinking that you had realized that you really are a pain in the arse—"

"Thanks," he croaked, as sarcastically as he could, even if that wasn't very much at all.

She continued as if she had not heard him. "But it didn't really make sense. You saying that, I mean. And 'bastard' does mean something else. So I looked up the obituaries for Glasgow, Scotland, and I found him." One of her long, thin fingers tapped at one specific sentence in the short paragraph. "And it said he's survived by his son, Alec Hardy." She looked up at him now. "I'm sorry, sir."

"Why?" he snapped, suddenly angry again. He had not expected her to make the connections at all (what had there been, really, to connect in the first place?), even though he should have realized that she could because she was a detective and a damn good one, too. He had not expected to have such a painful part of his life printed out there for her to see. He crumpled the paper into as small of a ball as he possibly could before throwing it onto couch. "If there's anyone deserving of the term 'bastard', it was _him_." The last word was spat out as a curse, laced with utter loathing. "I'm only sorry that the son of a bitch lived this long."

Ellie was pale hearing his words. She had wondered about his parents, his upbringing. Before arresting Joe he had stood on Broadchurch's beach and admitted that his parents had fought a lot but other than that she had heard no other mention of them at all. She had been raised with decent parents; Rick and Annie Miller had had their rough patches like any other married couple, their own fights and financial instabilities but they had tried to raise their two daughters as best they could, and for that Ellie held little but fond memories for her own parents. She had not had to live with hating her flesh and blood, so hearing Hardy speak so badly about his father was an alien concept for her.

"I'm sorry, then," she answered slowly, "that you had to deal with it alone. You went to Scotland, didn't you? For the service?"

He had gone before then. He arrived the day before his father had passed and it had been the worst time he'd had in awhile for anything. He hadn't been back to his father's house since he'd left at the age of sixteen.

"I was the only one who could legally arrange anything," he said hollowly, his hands clenched into bloodless fists. "I had to go."

"What exactly did he say to you, Hardy?" she asked gently.

He shook his head, turning away from her and running a hand through his hair. He was shying away from her. "I don't want to talk about it."

She felt his mouth tighten. "You were ready to jump off the cliffs, you jackass," she told him, not quite harshly, and she saw him flinch at her words. "You were suicidal, could still be, and all you're going to tell me now is you don't _want to talk about it_?" Her anger wasn't going to make him open up. He was backing away. God, how had she not ever realized how nervous and reluctant he was talking about himself? She followed after him, reaching out a hand. "Please. Last night, you asked me for my help. I'm here."

Her words nearly knocked him sideways. He slumped into the armchair in the corner. If there was anyone he could trust, and there were very few he could, Miller was one. "I never understood Mark, or Ricky," he admitted quietly, "risking everything they had built with their wives and children for another woman, or drugs, or alcohol, or whatever other shit it is anyone falls for." He shook his head. "Mum died when I was eleven." His voice was tight; Elaine Hardy's death would always be an open wound. "Lucas was an alcoholic. He'd beat on her. When I was sixteen he went after me with the buckle end of a belt." He smiled bitterly. "I left and I never went back."

Ellie was staring at him in open horror. "But you had to go back to settle things."

He nodded, swallowing past the sudden awful tightness of his throat. "He always accused Mum of cheating. He told me he'd found proof."

The realization of what his words meant clicked. Ellie's mouth hung open. "You weren't his child."

The tip of his mouth wrenched. "Exactly."


	4. Chapter 4

" _ **Chapter 4"**_

A/N: So sorry for the delay of this chapter!

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 _Lucas Hardy looked very little like his son. The only thing that they shared was their long tall height, although it was clear that the lad had inherited much of Elaine Hardy. The Hardy patriarch had been at this point bedridden for several days, his back having been broken by his fall from the ladder. He hadn't been found for nearly an hour while lying in the uncut grass of the bank below the house, and he hadn't been conscious for the being found part, anyway. The shock to his spine and system had done irreparable damage, Lucas had been informed by his doctor; he wasn't going to live to see the end of the month._

 _He was dying. He wasn't a fool; he knew that much at least._

 _He just didn't know how the boy had found out._

 _Lucas hadn't seen Alec for nearly twenty-five years. The night that the lad had run was still only a dull brown haze in his memory, a mess of noise and damnable light. He remembered only vaguely stumbling up the steps to the lad's room while clutching a half-drunk bottle of whiskey; then he had woken the following evening with a broken coffee table in the living room and his belt lying on the ground beside it with its gleaming silver buckle covered in dried blood. He hadn't searched very long or hard for where Alec had gone and his son had never contacted him; if he ever had any regrets of the night he couldn't recall, Lucas washed them away with drink._

 _And then just the day before he had woken from a drug induced sleep (to help dull the pain of his back) and Alec had been standing there, a disgruntled unkempt mess of wrinkled shirt and ruffled hair and barely-trimmed beard._

 _Lucas stifled a surge of resentment. That beard hid a lot of the features that reminded him of Elaine but it did nothing to hide the soft caramel eyes that his wife had had. Alec's eyes were almost exactly hers and he hated that. Lucas had never had a peaceable temper; nearly thirty years of time had not gentled it in the least. (There was, after all, a person from whom Alec had inherited his habit of lashing out.) With this son he didn't want to claim he wasn't about to hold back now._

 _He woke again this morning to dull grey skies and rain. Alec barely said a word but his dark eyes were smoldering with old fear and resentment, which served to please the old man._

 _Lucas Hardy loved the fact that his son was scared of him._

" _Took you long enough to get here."_

 _He'd found Alec seated rigidly in the chair that Lucas's daughter Annie had moved into the room, pale and thin-lipped and clutching a full untouched mug of earl grey. He could barely see a tremble in those long, nimble fingers as they curled around the handle of the ceramic cup._

" _I didn't want to come at all," Alec retorted simply. "Receiving a letter from a half-sister I never knew I had begging me to come and see you made me change my mind."_

" _She's not your half-sister." Lucas's Scottish burr was rougher even than his son's, although it wasn't nearly as slurred as Alec remembered. The tone was the same, though, derisive and acidic in its scathing, and it raised the copper's temper._

" _And you're still a bastard," he snarled._

" _I'm the man who raised you," Lucas snapped, "and you'll speak to me with the respect that I deserve, Alec."_

'You're a disrespectful child, Alec, and you'll be taught to respect your elders!'

 _A chill shivered down Alec's spine hearing his father's words, remembering too of the night he had finally left Lucas Hardy's roof for good. His back twinged with the memory of the lashing he'd had. "You deserve nothing of the sort, Dad. What you deserve is exactly what's happening to you now."_

 _Lucas's blue eyes gleamed. "You have guts to tell me that, lad. More guts than your mother had, at any rate-"_

 _The mug shattered on the hardwood floor; tea spread in a lazy pool below the bed as Alec shot to his feet. "You hated Mum. All you ever did was drink yourself into oblivion every night, wasting the money she worked three different jobs to get because you're too much of an irresponsible son of a bitch to get off your fucking arse. When she tried to get you to do anything you would hit her and threaten her."_

" _Are you sure you're remembering things correctly, Alec?" The snide question was more than just a jab and they both knew it. He expected Alec to flinch back. He forgot that his son was not the sixteen year old he had abused._

 _The pillow beneath his head prevented him from shifting backwards as Alec leaned over him, tall and lean and folding in to hiss at him, "If there's anything I remember correctly from my growing up in this shithole it was_ that _." Lucas had never seen this look on Alec's face before, or the stark flat darkness of his eyes; but it was a look that had stared across at dozens of murder suspects over the years. "You were the one who got me into police work, Dad—I wanted to protect others from abusive bastards like you."_

 _He had never been cowed before by his own son. The fright he was feeling now made his hatred grow, and he wanted that righteous anger in Alec's eyes to shatter._

" _Your mother wasn't the faithful angel you like to believe, Alec—"_

" _Don't call me that. I left that name here."_

" _She picked that name for you. She picked_ everything _for you. You were hers. Never mine."_

 _The moment was frozen. The air itself seemed unable to move as his words rang aloud for both of them. And looking carefully Lucas saw the beginnings of what he wanted to see. Alec moved away, taking a step back. "What makes you think that?" The question was hoarse._

 _Lucas smiled bitterly, gesturing towards the drawer beside his bed. "I suspected for a long time. Since before she died. And I finally got it confirmed. DNA confirmation."_

 _Shock and dread dilated the brown of Alec's eyes but to Lucas's surprise there was no protestations or trying to defend Elaine's honor. For a second that wide-eyed stare gazed at him and then it moved to the drawer, and Lucas knew he was going to look._

 _It took a moment but then finally Alec moved and opened the drawer, where the folded DNA test sat innocently amongst the dust that had collected there. There was a definite tremble to his hands as he gripped the corner of the paper and pulled it out._

 _And when the results had been completely read Lucas finally saw his son's countenance shatter._

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"So he's back? Why?" Beth's voice was a mix of surprise and confusion; Ellie imagined her standing in the kitchen and looking across the field at where the Miller's house stood in plain sight. Ellie herself was turned looking at the Latimer's while she shifted her phone from one ear to the other, but then glanced back at the living room. Alec sat on the edge of the couch just within sight, looking down at Fred as the toddler babbled happily away and brought his toys over for the copper to look at.

"Troubles in Scotland, I guess," Ellie said. "I don't know, he didn't really explain. Then again he never really does so there's that." As a matter of fact she knew more about this than she wanted to, but she was not about to tell Beth what the night before had been like. Fred was back over at Alec's side, holding up one of his stuffed bears. She thought she caught a hint of a grin on his haggard face as he nodded along to whatever the boy was saying.

"Well, I hope everything's okay with him now."

"Seems to be."

"Good. Tell him I said hello. I'll send Chloe over with that information, then, right after she gets dressed."

"I will. And thanks. I'll talk to you later." She disconnected the call with a slight sigh, staring at the screen as it went dark.

"What information is Chloe bringing over?"

Alec's voice made her jump, and she tried to hide the sudden guilt churning in her stomach behind a tone he would be familiar with. "God, Hardy, do you try to give people heart attacks?"

One sardonic brow sidled upwards at her words, and she realized too late the ironic callousness of the question. She flushed. "I- I didn't mean it that way—"

"Forget it, Miller. What is it that Chloe's bringing over?"

She wouldn't be able to hide it from him, anyway. He was too doggedly determined. She sighed and walked over to the table, placing her phone on the tabletop. "Information about that night. What we were all doing when Joe and Danny were meeting."

His other eyebrow rose, joining the first in incredulity. "Seriously?"

"Beth and Mark need closure, Hardy," Ellie said defensively. "We all do. We all know that Joe did it, we _know_ he murdered Danny. We're looking to see if any of us ever missed anything. Jocelyn told us that there could be a chance for re-inditement if we found new evidence."

He was silent for too long. Ellie's heart started beating faster. "You're looking through what we've already gone through a dozen times before in case we've missed something. We already know where everyone was, Miller. We had the bloody confession on record."

Her gut tightened. She couldn't believe this. "So you're not going to even _admit_ that there's a chance that Joe could still be charged with killing Danny? There's still so much we don't know about that night—the answer could be looking us right in the face and we don't know it!"

"This isn't Sandbrook, Miller." His voice was quiet, soft; it was the tone she hated most, and it made her want to flinch away from him.

She knew exactly what he was speaking about but she wasn't about to let him know that. "You think we're mad, going through old evidence. That's hypocritical of you, isn't it, _sir_?"

He didn't rise to her bait. "I think," he answered quietly, "that you hope that you can solve Danny's case the way you solved Sandbrook. And you did, Miller, you were the one who found the evidence that put Lee and Claire away. But this case—not all cases can be solved like that. I don't know if you'll find anything."

The betrayal that rose up and choked her windpipe closed surprised her; she had not expected his words to hurt the way they did, but thinking about it she realized that they certainly should hurt badly. She wanted to slap him with an intensity she hadn't felt for awhile and she clenched her fingers in a tight fist to keep herself from doing so. (She knew now, after all, a bit of his upbringing.) But the wound he'd gouged afresh wouldn't let her answer kindly. Her tongue could still hurt as much as a physical blow could. "I think you need to leave my house, Hardy."

The expression on his face told her he had not expected her to react this way. Stupid man, too bloody ignorant of ordinary human emotion to tell if his words were going to hurt. "Miller-"

" _Out_!" she ordered, moving around the side of the table and pointing her finger towards the front door. "Go back to your daughter, or wherever the hell it was you were staying, just- just- don't you _dare_ say we don't have a chance of getting justice for Danny! Go on!"

He left without a fight, a slight surprise amongst all the others, but she was too upset to worry about that. She heard the front door click closed as it shut and she buried her face in her hands as she struggled to keep from crying. Fred's quiet murmur broke the sudden silence in the kitchen and she turned to find him standing in the doorway of the living room, clutching his bear and one chubby hand reaching at the front door.

Looking at the purely innocent gesture she felt her heart simultaneously break and soften. She sniffed and rubbed her eyes, and walked over to her son. "He'll be back, sweetheart," she said quietly. "You'll see." He looked up at her unhappily, disgruntled at having lost the adult who he had been entertaining and Ellie hugged him close knowing that she was right. Hardy always came back.

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On the beach of Broadchurch, far from the tourist attractions and civilian walkways, seven men gathered together. Dressed in heavier clothing and shoes they blended into the background of the town starting to ready themselves with winter, and this was what they were counting on.

"He'll have forgotten what some of us look like—and he never met you, James, so you'll be our eyes and ears while going around the places he'll be. We are scouting only, now. We've got our orders from the boss on this."

A slight shiver seemed to pass through the group standing there in the sand. Shadowed eyed flickered nervously to and fro as if testing the mettle of their fellows, seeing who would flinch first.

"You know the consequences if we don't do exactly as he wants—he's been plannin' this for the past year. We're here _only to look_." The last three words were emphasized with more fervor than anything else; the speaker, at least, understood how serious his orders were. The scar on his mouth tightened as he spoke. "Understood?"

Nods all along.

He nearly breathed a sigh of relief. He had hopefully stressed the orders enough. "Meet at the pier three hours from now."

Being dismissed with their orders the group dispersed and went their separate ways, mingling among the crowds still travelling down Broadchurch's streets.

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Four hours later, St. Bede's church, led by Reverend Paul Coates, burned to its stone foundation.


	5. Chapter 5

" _ **Chapter 5"**_

A/N: I am so sorry for the long delay for this chapter! RL came along again and just as I was getting into writing this again I started another job and this time it's mandatory overtime and standing all day. I'll be updating my stories as regularly as I can but since summer's coming up the weeks are going to be 70 hours or more. Writing's going to be on the wayside temporarily.

Until the next time I update, please enjoy!

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Smoke still rose in dull wispy sheets from the site of the fire despite the chilled rain that begun to fall, marking the place of just one more blow to the town that had already lost so much. The pitiful remains of St. Bede's chapel sat charred and blackened and burnt to its skeletal foundation; once thriving ivy clung brittle and broken stubbornly to brick scrubbed grey by ash. The stain-glassed window that had hung so proudly above its congregation every Sunday morning now lay twisted and shattered amongst the destruction of the building that had housed it.

White with shock, Paul stood dripping in the falling rain, looking numbly at the remains of his home. Sirens from the police cars echoed and wailed eerily through his head and their lights seemed blinding to him.

The dull ache in his gut had intensified, that warning of _something coming_ had not lessened in the slightest, and he had already lost the church. His fingers trembling, he shoved them deep into his pockets and tried to steady his pounding heart.

 _What are You doing?_ He couldn't help the question, the plea to understand what was happening. He looked up at the silent skies, shaking his head helplessly and trying to shove aside his anger. Paul's long journey through his faith with God had taught him that sometimes simply having faith in His ways was all he could do, but at the same time experience had never taught him to cool his anger at certain things.

Paul wasn't sure if his anger was a sin or not, but he still felt it regardless.

"Paul!"

Beth's concerned call rose above the roaring in the vicar's ears and he turned to find her hurrying over, in no way encumbered by the winter coat and boots she was wearing. For one moment she paused in her trek over, her eyes widening in shock at the sight of the husk of the church behind him. She rallied quickly, however, and reached his side with her gaze rapt on its smoking ruins. "What's happened?" she demanded breathlessly. "I saw the flames from my house—they say you can see the smoke from the beach!"

Her statement was more of a blow to the gut than he was expecting; she saw his slight flinch.

"It just caught fire," Paul explained after a long moment of swallowing down his anger. "I wasn't there, I was out walking, and then I got a call from the fire department. They don't know anything yet."

She shook her head in silent dismay. "God," she whispered. "Paul, I'm sorry." She shifted from foot to foot for a moment, distressed, not liking the shine to his eyes. Not from tears. Finally unable to stand the silence she tugged at his arm. "C'mon, come with me to the house, we'll get you warm and dried off."

Paul appreciated the gesture in some corner of his mind but he didn't particularly care for it over all. "No," he said flatly. "Thank you, Beth, but no. I have to give a statement to the police, I'm sure, and they won't want me anywhere but here."

"Paul!"

The second cry of his name in the space of a few minutes caused both Paul and Beth to turn towards the field to find Ellie hurrying towards them, shrugging on her black wool coat and her hair in a disarray. She didn't look dressed to be police but from her bearing they could tell that she was slipping into the role of detective.

"Ellie." Paul's greeting was flat and he turned back to the smoldering ruins again to watch the smoke try to rise amidst the steadily-falling rain.

"When did this start?"

"I don't know," he replied shortly, becoming agitated. His voice was shaking and his hands were shoved viciously in his pockets to stop them shaking. "I was out and I got a call from the fire department that the church was on fire."

Ellie ignored his tone, knowing how shocked he must be feeling, and instead squinted at the foundation with a critical eye. Paul was too absorbed in the sight before them to notice but Beth caught the moment when her friend turned to look over her shoulder at someone she thought would be there, opening her mouth to speak aloud before realizing her mistake and coloring with her embarrassment. She rallied quickly, however, her expression smoothing away her discomfort, and Beth simultaneously wondered and suspected who it was Ellie had wanted to speak to.

"We'll need to get you to the station so you can make a formal statement for the records, Paul," she informed him quietly. "But I need to ask you now: who was it that you were visiting when the fire started?"

"One of the congregation. Melissa. She's been too ill with chemotherapy to come to Sunday morning."

"And she can verify what you've just said?"

The vicar was too shaken to answer calmly. He looked at Ellie with rising fury. "Do you actually think I would have a hand in burning down my own church?"

Ellie blinked, taken aback by the intensity of his anger. "No, Paul, I just need to make sure that we can clear you right now of any blame if there's a deliberate cause."

He took a deep breath and held it, clenching his eyes shut in sheer frustration and trying to stop their burning. When he had counted silently to ten and prayed for patience he was marginally calmer and he was able to answer her. "Yes. She can. I was there for a couple hours this afternoon."

Beth was staring down at his bag which was hanging loosely from his shoulder. "Paul, what do you have with you?"

He understood what she meant. "My personal bible, a couple books, my ipad… a few other things."

"We'll make sure everything is still alright," Ellie told him, trying for reassurance. "And maybe there's something we can salvage from what's been burned—"

He could only shake his head in despair and turn away from her.

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The trip to the station was tense and silent. Paul was stony-faced with his lips pressed in a long, thin line and Ellie could see his fingers clenching and unclenching in a fist. She had never seen the vicar truly furious (with Alec she had seen him irritated) and she decided that she didn't like Paul angry. She tried to assure him again that he wasn't a suspect in the burning of his own church but she sensed that her immediate questions at the site had made him uneasy and upset. He wasn't going to trust her now.

Beth had left the two of them to walk back home but Ellie suspected that she would be back, probably with Mark in tow; the friendship between Danny's mother and the vicar had been a topic of quiet interest following the months of Danny's murder case, or so Ellie had heard while she was in Devon. Some had even been shallow and cruel enough to speculate about a possible affair between the two of them. But Ellie had been there all through learning of Mark's infidelity and Beth's fury at learning of it and she knew her friend would not stoop to that level.

Paul's posture drooped as they entered the building. She wondered if it was from defeat or just simple grief from his loss and had to bite her tongue from telling him everything was going to be alright.

She'd come to hate shitty platitudes.

"It'll only take a moment, Paul," she assured him again as they walked down the hall towards one of the rooms. "Just to get a formal statement and then we'll take you down to the Traders for the night."

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly. "Thank you, Ellie," he finally said quietly.

Compassion welled in her chest, a feeling she had almost forgotten. "We'll bring you anything else we manage to find for you. I'm just glad you're okay, Paul."

The honesty made him swallow hard, unable to articulate the emotions her statement brought but Ellie merely smiled gently at him and let him sit down so they could record his statement.

Becca was surprised about being asked about lodging for the vicar but not entirely displeased, although she was dismayed to be told that the burning of the church wasn't just rumor. Ellie saw the way the blonde looked at Paul and suspected that she would be having a private moment with him.

Offhand Ellie inquired whether there were any other rooms that had been recently taken. The answer was a negative and it made her heart twinge with a sudden stab of anxiety. She had pushed Alec out without warning and with nothing but anger, and it was only the other night that she had found him suicidal at the edge of the cliffs.

She couldn't imagine a scenario of finding him dead. She _wouldn't._

She was tempted to pull out her phone and call him right away but Becca was looking at her curiously and she didn't want an audience when she talked to him next. She thanked Becca and left Paul to his own devices for a moment as she stepped into the foyer, contemplating, allowing her thoughts to drift away from Alec. She was in detective mode right now.

There was a chance the church burned by accident; electrical wires became worn, after all. There was a possibility that the church had been burnt down by a member of the town; a thought she didn't want to consider but every angle needed to be pursued. Hell, even though she believed Paul's innocence it could still be that this was some elaborate plan to hide a secret he had and he had allowed the fire to happen to do just that. Or it could be someone insulted by his preaching. Or someone outside the town and visiting.

Too many possibilities. Too many avenues of chance or choice. They were going to have to wait until some more information came up about how the fire had started in the first place. Sighing in temporary defeat Ellie pocketed her phone and walked back out to the main door. "I'll contact you, Paul, when we find out anything else."

He stood up from his seat at the bar. "Please, Ellie, I want to go back to the church, I need to see if they find anything—"

"No. No, I'm sorry Paul, but no," she said firmly when he attempted to argue. "St. Bede's was burnt for a reason, I think. If the ones responsible are still here somewhere we need to make sure you're not out in the open."

He paled and had to sit back down. "You think this was done deliberately?" he croaked, wide-eyed.

"I don't know, but we need to be careful until we know more. I'll keep you updated." For a moment Ellie missed Alec's presence; he would be asking the questions that were harder for her to ask, he wasn't afraid to sound accusing or setting others off. "If there's anything else you think we should know, you need to tell me, Paul."

He shook his head. "There's nothing. I don't know anyone who would do something like this."

"No former churchgoers or members of your old congregations?"

"No." The answer was short. For a moment Ellie suspected he was lying but his face was too open for it to be a complete lie. She took it on faith, however, not realizing the mistake she was making by not pursuing it.

"Okay. I'll update you as soon as we get some more information."

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 _The Screwtape Letters_ was not keeping his attention. It was a book that Paul read often and it was one he thoroughly enjoyed but tonight he couldn't concentrate on C.S. Lewis's words. There was still no news on how the fire had started so the vicar was left to his own devices and his own thoughts as he paced in the room Becca had set aside for him.

His anxiety became too great. Praying did nothing to calm him this time, no matter how hard he tried to concentrate, and finally he pulled out his phone and looked up the number hidden in his contacts he hadn't looked at in a very long time. He didn't even know if she still had this number but it was worth a try. He pressed the call button and heard the phone ring four times.

A blast of music and voices accosted his ear and he had to hold the phone a few inches away for a moment before he heard an answer.

"Hello?"

"Maddy." Instantly the tight knot in his chest loosened and he started to grin hearing her. It had been a long time.

Clearly she had had the same thought. "Paul! Bless me, where are you, boy? It's been too long."

"Been here and there. Where are you right now?"

The noise on the other end died a little. She had probably stepped outside. "Oh, it's the night out on the town. We've been to four or five different bars already, planning on moving soon."

"My church burnt down today, Maddy." He blurted out the information without thought and from the startled silence on the end he knew he had thrown her.

"You think someone did it on purpose?"

"I don't know, but I've lost nearly everything, Maddy, I only have a few things. I've been trying to pray and to calm down but I can't seem to. I don't know what to do right now." It felt good to admit that; with anyone else he would felt ashamed to admit his need for help but with Maddy he never could be. She would never judge him.

Her warm accent strengthened with compassion as she answered. "Darling boy, you know how it is sometimes. You ask but the answer doesn't always come. You're hurt and you're angry, I know. Were you hurt?"

"No. No, I'm fine, I'm just…"

He imagined her nod. "Then be grateful for that, Paul. Be happy that you are alive. Build your mind frame from there. You've read the scriptures, then?"

"They're not helping tonight."

"And sometimes they're not going to. Not right away." He had missed her no nonsense logic. "Sit and think in the silence, darling boy. That's all you can do. You know He can't speak to you if your mind is too busy."

"I know." He felt calmer already, less shaky. Contacting her was the best decision he'd made. "Thank you."

"Where have you ended up, then?" He heard her murmur a goodbye to someone leaving the building.

"Broadchurch. Seaside town."

"Oh, I love the sea. Been too long since I've visited it."

"No, Maddy." He realized where she was going with that and straightened in alarm. "You're busy, you don't need to—"

"I'll be there within a week, darling boy. Don't move away now."

The old familiar tease made him chuckle outright. "Suppose you'd hunt me down either way."

"Indeed. Sleep well, Paul. I'll pray for you."

'Thank you, Maddy." He knew there was no arguing with her on that. Sometimes it was just better to agree without a fuss.

He was hoping Ellie wasn't right when she had said that it was possible had someone deliberately set the church to burn. His would be the life threatened in that situation, after all. He didn't want anyone else standing in harm's way.

He had a past, after all, that still followed him.

St. Bede's had been set afire on purpose. And if his assumption and fears were correct, he thought he already knew who had done it.


End file.
